“Of course.” I tried to keep the pain from coming through. I didn’t want him to know just how hard this process was to go through alone.
The automated voice came on again with a thirty-second warning.
“I love you, Eli, and I miss you like crazy.”
“Same. I love you, Cole.”
19
Eli
It wouldn’t be long before the school started handing out contracts for the following year, and I hoped like hell I’d have another offer before I had to turn theirs down. Several of the other teachers had confirmed what I already knew, the AP English teacher wasn’t coming back, and the school would extend that position to me for next year.
Regardless, I wouldn’t accept. Even if Colbie didn’t want me at the end of this, I couldn’t stay in Brogdon. There was nothing for me here. What I’d believed to be waiting for me when I’d accepted this position hadn’t proven to be here at all. Yes, the job itself was open, and just as Caleb indicated when he threw the idea at me, the teacher on medical leave wouldn’t return. However, I had foolishly—or maybe I was just naïve—believed that living in the same town as my best friend would be like college. Not the parties and all-nighters, but the camaraderie. Getting married shouldn’t have changed much. It shouldn’t have made Caleb completely unavailable. He and Chasity had been together since I’d known him, and he’d never had a hard time juggling friends and his relationship. The reality was, that had been life at UGA, not in Brogdon, Georgia. Here, he had the guys he had grown up with, his family, and the life he made with his wife. And I’d never been part of those things. I was the outsider, his best friend from college, not childhood.
Most of the teachers at school were women, which was fine, but they weren’t people who would throw a football or that I could go have a pint with at the local bar while watching college sports.
And then there was Colbie. She’d changed everything.
I no longer cared about fitting in here or making friends or creating a life. I didn’t give a shit about being contracted for next year at Brogdon High or hanging out with the Chapmans at UGA games. I just wanted Colbie to graduate so we could leave. I’d never ask her to change her plans, and since mine weren’t fixed, it made sense to follow hers.
She could live in the dorms at Vanderbilt if she wanted. We could date while she attended undergrad. I wasn’t set on the logistics, just that I was nearby. I missed her. Never in my life had days crept along at such a slow pace. I’d done more writing since she’d left than I had when I worked on my dissertation. I wrote to her, for her, about her. Anything I could to keep my mind occupied. Most of what I’d written, I had sent to her to ensure she knew I thought about her constantly, that she was missed, but most importantly, loved.
I had not, however, told her that I had set up interviews in Nashville. One was with the Metropolitan Nashville Public School District, and I also had two with private schools closer to Vanderbilt. I hated not being able to talk to her about it, get her thoughts. I wanted nothing more than to drive to Tennessee with Colbie in my passenger seat as spring took over the mountains. The two of us could look at the schools, check out neighborhoods, have lunch. Stay for the weekend. But as it stood, I would make these trips alone. To make matters worse, I’d be within a few miles of Colbie yet not be able to see her.
I didn’t want to make these decisions on my own, and it wasn’t because I wasn’t capable of doing so. I wanted her in on everything we did. In my mind, that was how relationships that turned into marriages worked. My parents talked about the small stuff and worked together through the important decisions. They never made a move without the other. I used to believe my mom was dependent upon my dad, and that she somehow wasn’t capable of being assertive or decisive. Now I understood. It was never that she couldn’t be those things. She didn’t want to.
But when I only got an hour on the phone with her after forty-five days of silence, talking about my job, interviews, and next year wasn’t how I cared to spend our time. My only goal had been to hear her laugh. If I could have made her moan, that would have been at the top of the list as well. It hadn’t been until the end of the call that she’d mentioned she had privacy, but even still, I wouldn’t risk their being cameras. No one would ever see Colbie Chapman come undone but me.
The bell rang, snapping me out of my thoughts. Groans sounded around the classroom as students murmured complaints about not having had enough time to finish their tests. The only one who hadn’t complained—and who promptly stood to hand in her paper—was Jess.
I had to give it to the girl. She’d managed to find a way to ask me about Colbie nearly every day since she’d left—text messages, locating me in the hall or the teacher’s lounge. She was worried and feared she’d destroyed the friendship. Daily, I reassured Jess that if Colbie’s silence was an indication of her anger, then she was pissed at me as well. I needed to tell Jess that I’d talked to Colbie, but it would likely have to wait until after school.
I winced, thinking about texting Jess. If anyone ever got ahold of any of our phone records, I’d never be able to show my face again, much less teach. My texts with Jess were filled with concern for her best friend, but it was still a teacher interacting with a student. There was nothing that would make that okay. Even if it weren’t illegal, it was unethical and immoral.
As the last kid filed out of my room, I stacked their tests into a pile and put a binder clip on top of them. Grading them would go on tonight’s list of fun-filled activities to keep my mind off Colbie. I slid the work into my bag and grabbed all the stuff I needed to enter into the grade portal.
I’d found myself assigning more graded work and homework to the AP English class than I had forecasted in my lesson plans. At first, I hadn’t realized what I was doing. Then it dawned on me, that every assignment they had to do, Colbie did as well. I hadn’t been able to talk to her, but I still got to read her words. She might not have hidden messages in the paragraphs, but I pretended she had. It also gave me the chance to look at her grades in her other classes, as well as her class standing.
Colbie hadn’t mentioned it, and I wouldn’t bring it up. But I had the inside vantage point. I knew where she was in class rank and whether or not she still held the number one spot. Jess no longer had a clue which one of them outperformed the other. And every time I logged in, my heart would skip a beat, and my chest would tighten until I saw the number next to her name. While her work in my class remained A quality, there had been a couple bobbles in others. I didn’t have a lot of information other than Colbie said part of what she had to learn to manage was her time, and that had come at a price.
Even if her work had slipped below that of the rest of the class, I couldn’t have given her less. It was wrong and unfair to the other students. I just didn’t care. She didn’t deserve to have been ripped out of town, much less to lose what she’d worked for because of it. However, I couldn’t control what other teachers did, nor would I mention it to them.
* * *
“I have a favor to ask.” Colbie’s uncertainty bothered me, mostly because I couldn’t soothe her worry while she was away.
“You know I’ll do anything for you.” And I would. If it were in my power, I’d make it happen.
Whatever she needed, she clearly didn’t want to say. Colbie started and stopped several times.
“Baby, just tell me.”
She groaned. “Fine.” And she huffed. “My counselor thinks it would be a good idea for you to join us for a session or two. Bright Horizons believes it’s imperative for those who will be involved in my life post-treatment to be involved during treatment as well. I know you won’t want to, and I hate having to ask. And since we haven’t really talked about what happens after this, you probably think I have the cart before the horse, but it’s just—”
“I’d be happy to—” It also gave me a segue into another topic that had to be addressed.
“I’m sorry, Eli. I know it’s a long drive—”<
br />
“Colbie. Stop.” I waited to make sure she’d quit rambling. “I’m happy to. I am going to Nashville in a couple weeks, anyhow.”
“You are?” Her pitch escalated in surprise.
“Yeah. Over spring break, I’ll be there for several days.”
She shuffled around, and the phone picked up the static of whatever it had rubbed against. “For what?”
God, I wished I could see the curiosity in her eyes and the way her lips remained parted when she asked a question. “I have three job interviews lined up.”
“In Nashville?” By now, I knew she’d sat straight up, and if she had a blanket covering her, it would be puddled at her feet. That sexy space would still remain between her lips as she inhaled a deep breath. “I don’t understand.”
I had thought I was reasonably clear, but I could certainly draw her a map to my conclusions. “Colbie, you’re not going to be in Brogdon next year, and neither am I.”
“…You’re going to be in Nashville?” Her naïveté was cute.
“Is that where you’re going to be?”
She huffed as if she didn’t understand. “Well, yeah. Vanderbilt is there.”
“And you thought what? That I would just let you leave for four years and hope that you would return between undergrad and med school? Maybe get hitched before you raced off to become a doctor?”
There was dead silence on the other end of the line. I couldn’t even hear her breathe.
“Colbie?”
“Yeah. I’m here. I’m just…in shock.”
I’d been wandering around my house while we talked, but at that point, I dropped onto the sofa and got comfortable. “About what?”
“That you’d re-plan your life around mine.”
I shook my head, even though she couldn’t see it. “You still don’t get it, do you?”
“I guess not.” She was young. She’d also never really had anyone devoted to her, much less a guy. Colbie had never had a boyfriend, and Dr. Chapman hadn’t been what she deserved—not to say he wasn’t a good man, he just hadn’t been attentive to his only daughter as I believed he should have been.
“I want to be where you are. Plain and simple. I don’t want to do the long-distance thing any longer than we have to. And right now, we have to. Come June, it’s a choice. And a choice I’m not willing to make.”
“But what about Brogdon?”
I chuckled at her concern. “The high school or the town? Because really, neither hold any further interest.” I hated not being able to see her or hold her or reassure her with the stoke of my thumb on her hand.
“Oh.”
“I know we have a lot to work through. And I hope that maybe your counselors can help us figure out how to navigate it. There are things you will need when you leave there, and I’ll do my best to ensure you have them. But if I can get a job in Tennessee, it makes that a whole lot easier.”
A few seconds of silence passed before she hesitantly confirmed, “You’re getting a job in Nashville?”
“Yes.”
“So we can be together?”
“Yes.”
“In Nashville.”
“Yes.”
“As a couple?”
I burst into laughter and talked through the gales. “Yes, baby. I want to be with my girlfriend in Nashville while she goes to Vanderbilt and I teach. I want to buy a house that you help me pick out. I’d love for you to live with me, but if you want to live in the dorms, I’ll be happy with that as well.”
Colbie remained quiet, and I wondered if it was too much, not just for her age but based on everything else she had going on. The two of us didn’t get to talk a lot about Bright Horizons, but what she did share was overwhelming for me; it had to be like a tidal wave for her.
The sniffles she tried to hide came through, scaring me, yet still, she didn’t say anything.
“Cole?”
“What if I don’t want to live in the dorms?” There she was, the strong-willed woman I loved who had an opinion on everything and preferences she couldn’t be deterred from.
Nothing would make me happier than coming home to Colbie Chapman every night, going to bed with her, waking up next to her. The two of us would be able to share the details of our day without worry, have dinner, go on dates. It was ideal for me, and I’d never tell her no. “I want you with me, always. So, do you think you can schedule time with your counselors around my visit and my interviews? I’m off that whole week, so I can come earlier and stay later. Whatever you need.”
Her tone changed into one I’d never heard before. The only way I could describe it was carefree. We spent the rest of the call discussing her nutritionist and trainer. I didn’t get the impression that she cared for either, although she clearly understood the power they each held. And little by little, she gave me bread crumbs to her recovery and the painful pieces of what had brought her to what sounded like acceptance.
She still danced around what had gotten her to this place—the reasons behind her excessive need for perfection—but it was the first time she hadn’t denied her need to be in Tennessee. It wasn’t my place to bring to light the nuances, the intricacies. Colbie had gone from hating the idea to hating the process—and that was progress. Hopefully, her counselors would get her there. And maybe while I was in Nashville, I could help.
She was an incredibly bright young woman. Her mind had shut off this part of her brain to protect her. There was no doubt these were the pieces of the puzzle that she hadn’t put into place—the pieces that kept her in the dorms for nearly sixty days when most moved out in the first thirty. But I was fairly certain she’d made improvements that I wasn’t aware of. I was okay with that. I didn’t need the painful details if Colbie didn’t want to share them. I’d help her carry the burden of the load blindfolded.
The voice I dreaded hearing made an appearance on the line to let Colbie know her time was up. “Find out the dates and times for me so I can plan my trip around them. Will I get to talk to you again this week?”
“Unless I screw up.” She wasn’t indifferent to the possibility, but she wasn’t as averse to the idea as she had been when she’d left two months ago. “I don’t plan on it though. So, I should get to call you Tuesday night.”
My calendar revolved around those two calls, and they came like clockwork. I probably should have encouraged her to call her parents or spend some of her phone time on Jess. However, I was a greedy son of a bitch who didn’t play well with others. Sharing had never been my forte. If her parents had been more attentive, none of this would have happened. Jess, on the other hand, I felt sorry for. At least I had the knowledge that she and Colbie had been exchanging letters. I didn’t know the content from either of them. I did know that communication would result in reconciliation. The girls had been too close for too many years for a boy and a confession to come between them…or so I hoped. Colbie needed Jess as much as she needed me.
“Then I guess you need to make sure to do what you’re supposed to. I look forward to hearing from you.”
“I’ll do my best.”
I hated that for anyone else, doing their best was what most people asked for. With Colbie, doing her best had jeopardized her health and created a monster she couldn’t contain and certainly couldn’t control.
“You always do, and I love you for it. But working on you is more important. We’ve got the rest of our lives to talk.” Not hearing from her would hurt like hell, and it would drive me insane until I knew what had happened, but none of that was anything she’d ever know. I’d just keep writing to her and covet every second I got until I had her home.
The electronic woman gave her final warning.
“I better let you go.” The sadness at the end of our calls cut me like a knife, shredding my insides with grief. “I love you, Cole.”
“I love you, too, Eli. And I miss you.”
We disconnected, and I sat on my couch still holding the phone for ages. The moment I set it down, I’d be sep
arated from her. As long as I held it, I clung to the connection. It probably wasn’t any healthier for me to be as dependent upon her as she was on perfection, but I’d never stop myself from loving her with everything I had.
20
Colbie
“Colbie, why are you so anxious?” Raine sat across from me at her desk.
I was fairly certain she already knew the answer to this question, but part of working through my emotions was learning to express them, to talk about them, to share them instead of bottling them up. This was where I struggled most, not because I couldn’t accept the emotion, but I hated exposing my vulnerability. “I’m afraid for him to see me like this.”
Raine leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. She was much easier to deal with when she sat next to me rather than in her power chair. “Who?”
I tried to communicate through my stare just how unimpressed I was with her question, but as usual, Raine didn’t take the hint. “Eli.”
“Why?”
Saliva pooled in my mouth, and my heart beat a little faster. My anxiety ratcheted when I got uncomfortable, so I took several deep breaths and swallowed hard. “Because he hasn’t seen me like—” I didn’t know how to phrase my thoughts without using degrading words—which weren’t allowed—so I glanced down my body and then met Raine’s stare. “This.”
“And what exactly does this refer to?”
I huffed, but Raine didn’t react; she never did. “My weight, my body. Here.” I waved my arms just in case she wasn’t sure what I referred to.
“What are you afraid he’ll see?”
“Imperfection.”
Raine smiled. That one word didn’t imply much, but in my case, it said everything. “Flaws are reality, Colbie. We all have them. You have a choice on how you deal with them.”
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